1. Quality of individuality and quality of association
are interdependent. The achievement of liberty and equality is inseparable
from the attainment of fraternity.

2. Growth in individuality depends upon contact
with a wide variety of people, ideas, and conditions.

3. Humans need associations, because there is
a need to link up with conditions that spring loose one’s capacities
and powers. Belonging to authoritarian organizations tends to limit
the kind of give and take which allows for the development of freedom
and equality. The imbalance makes the fortunate at the top “unfortunate,”
because they lack obstacles that promote reflection and growth; and
it denies “subordinates” the resources they need to deal
intelligently with their problems.

4. Fraternity means cooperation. It is both fact
and ideal. In real situations, people must work together to deal with
obstacles to their working together. Individuals together must try to
figure out what is best (aim or ideal) for individuals taken together,
and they must also use imagination to work out possible common ground
and possible shared courses of action.

5. Fraternity is association that reaches out
to more and more association, that tries to be more and more inclusive.
As individuals grow in individuality, so associated individuals grow
in the manner and reach of their associations. Exclusiveness limits
association and therefore limits the development of individuality.

6. The point is to develop that kind of association
which promotes individuality and that kind of individuality which promotes
cooperation or willingness to work with others. This means developing
both sides of human nature to be mutually reinforcing. With education
and experience, human beings can learn to think for themselves (consciousness),
while including in their thoughts the needs and interests of others
(social consciousness).

7. Only democratic modes of association fulfill
this requirement. Non-democratic modes of association tend to “promote”
some, while stifling others. They are power plays or competitions for
power and influence. They rely on one-sided use of force, rather than
cooperative interaction. Authoritarians mistakenly believe they can
“make” individuals do their best.

8. People working together have things in common.
They try to coordinate their resources and energies and to eliminate
the obstacles that get in the way of their shared progress. But this
common progress need not be democratic. Individuals marching together
toward the same goal may belong to authoritarian organizations (such
as assembly-line workers). What distinguishes mere mechanical or forced
association from genuine democratic community is not merely having the
same end or purpose, but participating or contributing in the framing
of that end and in the development of courses of action to realize that
end. Democratic individuals work together in the light of shared purposes
and shared strategies, which they have worked out together.

9. Human beings in “society” find
themselves in common problematic situations or predicaments. In try
to figure their way out, they rely on imaginative appreciation of the
standpoints of others and overt discussion (public deliberation). Realistically,
human beings have to adjust their aims and purposes in the light of
social imagination and overt discussion. Realization of even “personal”
goals depends upon taking account of the stubborn facts or conditions
of living together.

10. Democracy or community requires common ground.
Through communication, human beings find old common ground and establish
new common ground. Common ground includes shared experience, shared
language, and shared cultural meanings (ideas or possible experiences).
It also includes knowledge of individual standpoints or differences.
[See Paragraph 10 in the notes.]

11. There is a similarity between the inner debate
of personal deliberation (reflection) and the outer debate of public
discussion and conversation. Democracy requires free discussion or debate
and free exchange of information or ideas. [See Paragraph 11 in the
notes.]

12. Striving for community does not mean loss
of individuality. Rather, it indicates the worth of inclusive rather
than isolated individuality. [See Paragraph 12 in the notes.]

13. Communication draws from the fund of common
meanings or ideas that constitutes culture. It also adds to or contributes
to that fund of common meanings.

14. Each person’s actual experience, when
shared, becomes possible experience for others. Communication of meanings
frees minds to think new possibilities, gives human reflection new resources
and energies. Conversation (even “conversation” with books)
multiplies possibilities for thought in ways that private reflection
cannot. Development of freedom of thought in individuals requires widespread
and “free” communication of ideas.

15. General ideas can be drawn upon by many individuals
to guide their thought and action.

16. What binds a society or community together
is its culture or tradition, its system of meanings, its meaning-horizon,
its fund of accumulated possibilities (ideas). It is this meaning horizon
(including language) which makes interpretation of present facts possible.
One’s own angle of vision is enriched and increased through dependence
on and use of this meaning horizon. Use of shared meanings helps reveal
what is distinctively one’s own.

17. Democracy means expansion of the meaning horizon
(fund of meanings). The locus of these meanings is primarily works of
art and the spoken word. [See Paragraph 17 in the notes.]

Please note: These philosophical
commentaries, though still in process, are the intellectual property
of Gordon L. Ziniewicz. They may be downloaded and freely distributed
in electronic form only, provided no alterations are made to the original
text. One print copy may be made for personal use, but further reproduction
and distribution of printed copies are prohibited without the permission
of the author.